Gareth checks out the new album by Holycide, released today on International Slayer Day!

Spanish thrashers Holycide have certainly made a name for themselves over the last few years with two full lengths and a couple of EPs, with second album ‘Fist to Face’ especially drawing attention for its striking album art, which showed the band’s gas masked mascot giving a certain rotund, and follicly challenged ex-president a well-deserved beating. Anyway, the Madrid based quintet are back with another slab of modern thrash to appease us all.

Starting with the superfast ‘AI Supremacy’, with riffs flying out in all directions from your speakers, and a dump truck heavy breakdown, and Dave Rotten spitting out the lyrics with real venom. The title track turns back the speed, but hits you with sheets of rolling riffage, before picking up the tempo for the chorus. Guitarists Ancor Ramírez Santana and Salva Esteban, certainly have an ear for a riff or two, with plenty of creative meaty six string goodness, while the bass of Vicente Payá weaves in and around, reinforcing the solid drumming and percussion of GoG! The guys have upped the aggression on ‘Towards Idiocracy’ even further than last year’s ‘Bazookiller’ EP, and yet still has plenty of melody, ‘Lie Is the New Truth’ for instance has a cool little Slayer like lick as it’s main motif and works really well in anchoring the song. ‘Technophobia’ is one of my favourite tracks with its see-saw riffing and blunt force chords, together with some scathing lead work. The cover of Atrophy’s‘Chemical Dependency’ seems a bit redundant, being nothing more than a faithful, albeit enjoyable, run through of the original. But ‘Pleased To Be Deceived’ is a brilliant, unrelenting, skull cracking original, while the hilariously titled ‘Flamethrower ‘Em All’ ends the album with real aplomb, by a mixture of crushing heaviness, and scintillating melody, again some accomplished songwriting.

The production, mixed and mastered by Javier Fernández Milla and Davide Billia, is everything you need and demand for a perfect thrash-fest, if chainsaws had precision, this would be the end result, sonic carnage. Holycide isn’t reinventing the thrash wheel with ‘Towards Idiocracy’, but who cares, it does what it says on the tin and thrashes like an absolute beast.

Out today 6/6 probably at 6am….